A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left.
Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

11 Comments:

Jules Pipe in China said...

Hi Comrade

Jules here in Peking sorry Beijing with my bestest mates Guy Nicholson and Big Chief Exec Timmy Shields. Just to say were really missing you out here in our 5* Hotel and the flight over was just divine. We roared with laughter seeing Greenwich only spent £16k sending 6 council staff on this junket whilst Hackney council tax payers spent £30,000 sending just five of us over here. Don't worry we'll get you a pressie how about some fake goods from the child labour sweatshops. Just up your Stoke Newington Church Street.

Thankgod they are rejecting them, property prices are crashing and there really isn't much point pushing the poor onto the housing market in a falling market.

You lot make me laugh we have a PM that has continuously arrogantly boasted about no more boom and bust yet here we are in the worst housing crash for over 10 years and this is just the start of it. Can you imagine what this will be like in 2009, seriously you lot are deluded.

What on earth is this government doing pumping tax payers money into banks when there are 1000s of working families losing their homes and becoming homeless. They would be better off helping people with repayments via interest free loans and letting these greedy banks crash and burn.

These banks have been making billions year on year with not a care for the people they have been lending money to. Yet now it is all going wrong they want the tax payer to bail them out but we get no share in their profits.

No! but is that any reason to support this government and the next if they behave in this way.

This is a disgrace and is a misuse of tax payers money. We are fighting two wars on a shoe string budget, our NHS is now being rationed yet Brown has the nerve to pour another 20 billion down the drain.

Government have to learn they are there to serve and not to rule, otherwise we'll kick them. If they don't listen then we'll give another party a chance....such as the BNP.

What I find crazy is that social security no longer pays the interest on peoples mortgage should they lose their job. I found this out on Friday following a meeting with a local housing charity that is helping families in great difficulty.

All mortgages after 1995 are no longer protected by the DHSS. Surely it would be wise to reinstate this right immediately to help those facing eviction. We can not afford to throw 100s of home owners into the rental market at the moment there just isn't the capacity.

Brown must be bold and face the facts that the solution isn't to try and kick start the housing market through tax cuts. He must take brave steps and use any money left in the budget to help those in arrears. Getting first time buyers onto a falling market in immoral and dangerous and could make the situation much worse.

The point, Rich, is that in many ways the same policies would be pursued. I don't see any government or opposition as committed to the market as both NL and the Tories would ever tackle the question of the banks.

The BNP are a fringe fascist party preaching a dangerous populist creed. Criticising the main parties is no reason to back the BNP.

As for social security and mortgage payments, this was introduced under the Tory party. It again displays the difficulty of having such a domination of owner-occupation as a tenure. I'm not convinced that large amounts of public money can be permanently ploughed into this, however. The problem is the number of people who took out unrealistic mortgages. Payments are now much larger than rentals.

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About Me

Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Supporter of Europe, NATO/nuclear deterrence, Israel, electoral reform. Guardian reader. Dad. Oxford resident. Unite union member. Employment history as a Labour Party Organiser, Local Government Political Assistant, Director at a Public Affairs company. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.